Curfew history

1905: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union asks for a curfew for children and bell to signal its start.

1918: A youth curfew appears in the traffic bylaw

1931: Groups seek a revival of the curfew and city seeks a business that will blow a steam whistle to signal the curfew’s start. The Western Canada Brewing Company (now Great Western) agrees, but draws criticism from alcohol prohibition lobby groups. The city buys a siren and places it on the roof of the power station at River Landing. The fire chief, however, complains it sounds too much like a fire siren and it’s returned.

1937: Bylaw bans children under 13 from streets and in public without an adult after 9 p.m. from October to March and after 9:30 p.m. from April to September. Parents are fined $1 for a first offence.

1977: Curfew bylaw is amended to move the curfew to 10:30 p.m. year round and increase the age it applies to to those under 15.

Two women seeking a nighttime curfew for youth vow to continue their efforts after a cool reception at Thursday’s board of police commissioners meeting.

But the women, the board and police might be surprised to know the City of Saskatoon still has a youth curfew bylaw on its books prohibiting anyone under 15 from being on the streets or any other public place without an adult after 10:30 p.m.

The bylaw appears to have been forgotten by police and politicians and is not being enforced.

Agatha Eaglechief sent an email to the board, urging that a 10 p.m. curfew be implemented for high school students. She appeared at Thursday’s meeting with her aunt, Viola Sparvier.

“Right now there is no control,” Sparvier told the board after Eaglechief became too emotional. “They (youth) run wild and do what they want wherever they want.

“The children, they don’t have any discipline. They need some discipline.”

Commissioners were polite but dismissive about the curfew proposal.

“I don’t believe a curfew is a solution to this,” Coun. Darren Hill said. “I don’t believe that’s the best use of our police resources.”

Hill suggested reviewing what programs are available to youth.

Coun. Charlie Clark said youth on the street at night could be escaping an unsafe situation at home and expressed hesitancy about the possibility of police returning someone to a dangerous environment.

“A curfew is a bit of a black-and-white thing,” Clark said. “I’m not convinced that a curfew would lead to a safer community like you’re describing.”

Sparvier told reporters after the meeting they will take their proposal next to the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

Related

Acting police Chief Bernie Pannell acknowledged the women’s concerns are legitimate and youth crime is rising. He told reporters after the meeting that those between 13 and 18 are most likely to be involved in crime, but also most likely to be victims of crimes.

However, he said curfews are difficult to enforce and agreed with the commissioners who questioned whether enforcing a curfew was an effective use of police resources.

He also wondered about the issue of “selective enforcement” if police used a curfew as a tool in certain instances.

“The City of Saskatoon has changed tremendously in the 40 years I’ve been policing,” Pannell said. “This is a 24-7 city right now.”

The curfew debate reaches far in the city’s history. There is still a Saskatoon bylaw dating back to 1937 restricting youth in public during nighttime hours.

According to City of Saskatoon archivist Jeff O’Brien, the city has had a bylaw banning youth with varying age limits as early as 1918. The curfew was apparently removed from the traffic bylaw in 1931, then revived in 1937 and amended in 1977.

A lobby group that led to the 1937 curfew cited “delinquency, immorality and the formation of crime gangs” as justification. A delegation added, “since the discontinuation of the curfew … children are roaming the streets at all hours, and this is a menace to the health of growing children, who require an adequate number of hours of sleep.”

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